Opera Orfeo (Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels) Cosi fan tutte
(Glyndebourne)
Uninhibited intensity
Michael Tanner
In Brussels, in the lovely Theatre de la Monnaie, Rene Jacobs has been conduct- ing a series of superb performances of Monteverdi's Orfeo, and Londoners will be able to see it in the Barbican's Bite:98 series at the beginning of June. Though °rie might have reservations — I hardly do ----. about the visual presentation, the singing and playing, above all the musical direction, utterly uninhibited in its expres- sive intensity, make one marvel anew at the quickness with which a new art-form pro- duced a nearly flawless masterpiece. Anyone who knows Jacobs's recording will be prepared for the zestful opening attack from the trumpets, placed in an Upper box in the theatre; but they will note h°‘;' he has tightened up his interpretation, entirely, I think, to its advantage. The pace never flags, and the orchestra, the Concer- to Vocale, quite large in Act I ( the whole Piece plays without a break), is pared down When disaster strikes, giving a strong sense of how Orfeo is now unsupported, alone, and of how desperate his quest is. , For the performance I saw, Simon Keenlyside, now unquestionably a great singing actor, was the Orfeo; at other per- formances it is the tenor Carlo Vincenzo Nieman°. Keenlyside integrated himself into the actions of the chorus, themselves working with the Trisha Brown Company of dancers. Mainly the dancing is sparse, functional, with more gesturing than leg movement. But during the opening ritornel- lo, as a large blue circle fills the stage, a dancer on almost invisible wires swings into sight and performs vertiginous acrobatics; She makes several comebacks, as Orfeo's fortunes vary. She is the only spectacular thing about this spectacle. One only saw how bizarrely some of the other characters are dressed when they took their calls, for the gloom was too intense in Hades.
Concentration is wholly on the taut Progress of this drama, the festivities has- tening towards the Messenger's appear- ance, and the first tragic scene in opera. It might be extravagant to say it is as moving as any, but its power still comes as a shock in a performance as direct as this.
Keenlyside is a restrained performer, focused, almost withdrawn, only at moments of intolerable crisis becoming momentarily explosive. He is just right for this highly moralistic drama, the point of which is summed up by the chorus of infer- nal Spirits: 'Ode° conquered Hell but met defeat from his own tenderness; the only man fit for eternal glory has won a lasting victory over himself.' The battle he loses results from momentary weakness, while his victories over himself are not simply self-restraint, but his capacity to make exact each torment that he feels, and to impart his pain to initially unsympathetic hearers. Monteverdi's strictly incomparable vocal lines enable a sensitive singer almost to give the impression that we are hearing his or her feelings directly rather than as vocalised, ravishing as they are. That is the paradox and the triumph of this art which, encased in splendour, is in its essence devoted to inwardness. And no other inter- preter has so complete a grasp of this as Jacobs.
The Barbican series in which Orfeo will be appearing began with Philip Glass's and Robert Wilson's 'shaking up the art (of opera)' with Monsters of Grace, which is described as 'a 3-D computer-animated marriage of the virtual and the surreal'. No point in making heavy weather of it. It is musically and scenically null. The coloured spectacles we were handed as we entered resulted in no more striking an experience than I had in 1953 when there was a brief attempt to introduce 3-D horror movies. Then as now my most enduring impression was of the headache they left me with. Monsters of Grace has the sole virtue of comparative brevity. None of the music is in the least interesting or marks any devel- opment on Glass's part. The work is 'non- linear', a series of mainly unrelated images. The reception of the piece was gratifyingly tepid.
Glyndebourne began the season with a Cosi fan tutte which, considering the talent at hand, was so dreary that one felt some point was being made — but clearly one which it would be better not to know about. Apparently we were seeing what a rehearsal would be like, and I can well believe it: no scenery has arrived yet, and there are a couple of old-fashioned radia- tors against the back wall, and a couple of thin columns nearer the centre of the uncoloured but exhaustingly brightly lit stage. The cast are in their everyday clothes, though one or another occasionally dons a tricorn; when chairs are needed a stagehand brings in some plastic office models. Cushions are thrown on to the stage for some heavy-petting scenes. To credit anyone as designer seems to be tak- ing things a bit far.
More worryingly, Andrew Davis shows himself to be an entirely superficial conduc- tor of Mozart — or perhaps only of this work, a special case. Anyway, since the last Cosi I saw was under his great namesake with the Royal Opera, and only a few weeks ago, with the same superb Fiordiligi, Bar- bara Frittoli, comparisons were inevitable. That earlier performance was the finest of the work I have ever seen or ever expect to. Yet I love the piece so much that I was all eager anticipation for something that could hardly be as good, but like all competent performances, would shed further light on a truly inexhaustible work.
Disappointment at the lack of life in the opening scene, when the terms of the ordeal are agreed on, soon gave way to incredulity that one musical and dramatic opportunity after another was being ignored, often it seemed deliberately. Act I was a mere catastrophe. In Act II things improved in the musical department, but the production became still more inept: when Guglielmo placed his hand on Dora- bella's heart, she placed hers on his crotch. At the rate Cosis are going, we shall soon have an entirely nude Act Even the work's poignant climax, the duet Pra gli amplessi', was unmoving, or almost. The singing, in this ultra-complete version (it would be a favour to this opera to continue observing some of the tradi- tional cuts), was generally on a very high level. Certainly Frittoli was still finer than in London, but the effect she created was far smaller. The thought of Graham Vick, evidently now devoid of ideas, producing the rest of the Da Ponte operas at Glynde- bourne is intolerable. He might try a fresh start, preferably in a radically new line of business.
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